Ask the Devs video + Island Winner
about 6 years ago – Thu, Feb 27, 2020 at 02:30:28 AM

Dear Backer,

Today we’re excited to be sending you this interview with Peter Stråhle, Technical Artist on Book of Travels. This is the first in our series of Ask the Devs, small movies in which a team member answers your questions, so thank you to all those who posted questions via Twitter and Discord. 

The Isle of Torn Voice

It’s been a long time in the choosing and there was a lot to love in every island entry we received during the Kickstarter campaign, but now we finally have our winner. Thank you to Collin Wilhelm for Torn Voice, in Collin’s words, "An island with a cave where music and song sound the most beautiful." Here’s what 2D Artist Charlotte had to say about it:

"This in itself is very lovely. However, we're going to add a bit of a twist. The ghastly feeling given by the figures in the cave made us think that the island could be a refuge for lost souls; shadows of beings, appearing at random times, singing their past lives. We loved the mood and the mysticism, and we could definitely picture it working in Book of Travels. Another important point was the visual concept of it: we had no plans on making a cave in the water, but of course we need one!"

You can see more of Collin's illustration here

Runners-up

One of the unexpected treats of the campaign was gathering together your creations - thanks to those of you you who supplied us with a treasure trove of art and stories too varied and rich to do justice to in this little paragraph. And as with everything you send to us, please know that it’s all part of the listening and creating project that is Book of Travels. Our team isn’t big enough to respond to everything, but the entire project is a river whose course and current is determined by listening to you so please do keep adding your ideas to the flow right here. 

But wait! I was about to give a special mention to our three runners-up: Jordan Moller, Lorne Colt and Clémence Koren - congratulations!

 Jordan’s Bridge Islands sketched out a “marshy island with cacophonous frogs", while Lorne’s fog and broken statues offers a slightly creepy island experience, Book of Travels style. Clémence’s beautifully handmade Island of Tidal Pools is only revealed every month at a low tide. You can see more here from Jordan Moller, Lorne Colt and Clémence Koren. A Book of Travels Steam key will go to each winner.

Help us celebrate

Might and Delight will be ten years old in April! We're planning our celebrations. If you have any ideas for things we can do to commemorate, send us a Tweet or let us know on Discord!

Before we check out, a few recurring requests prompt us to pass these tips and links on:

• If you are a backer with a Dev Party invite our first party opportunity will be next month - watch this space for more info.
• Some of you are still looking for this Discord link. Even if you aren't, jump in and say hi!
• If you missed out on our campaign or a friend wants to get involved, many of our rewards are still available right here where you can also buy the game at a special pr-order price.

That's all for now – we look forward to reconnecting for 2020 and reading your comments  below or on Steam, where you'll find more behind-the-scenes updates in the months to come. 

Best Wishes,

Helen and the team at Might & Delight

Gameplay Update #1 - What are Endeavours?
about 6 years ago – Thu, Feb 27, 2020 at 01:24:20 AM

Dear Backers,

We're happy to share the first of a series of mini posts that will take you behind the curtains of Book of Travels production. In the coming months we'll be sharing small insights into the production journey, leading up to early access release later this year, and towards full release!

What are Endeavours?

Today we want to share some progress on the game design systems. As many of you have read before, Book of Travels balances a lot of contrasting gameplay elements and it’s very much up to the player to pick and choose which parts to engage in. One of the pillars of the experience that we’re currently working on is a multiplayer feature we call Endeavours.

Endeavours are special events that require players to help each other and cooperate to solve situations (players of Meadow will recognise traces of obelisks). The amount of players needed, the context, the goal and the rewards all vary greatly from event to event. Starting out, your character represents one “slot” in any endeavour, but as your character develops it might gain the ability to cover two. Some Endeavours can be solved alone, but others will require you to gather a large band of travellers before engaging. Some will reward you with small magical boosts or items, and other, rare Endeavours can be the starting point of larger adventures! Endeavours are divided into four categories; physical, mystical, mechanical and social.

Physical Endeavours

These situations challenge your group with feats that require strength, such as operating a draisine cart, pulling objects out of a well, or clearing heavy rubble to uncover items.

Mystical Endeavours

These can be anything from praying by a shrine or singing at a graveyard to interacting with magical beings and invoking visions of the past. 

Mechanical Endeavours

Braided Shore is a land that inherited an ancient industrial infrastructure, some of it is still noticeable in today's society. Through mechanical endeavours your group can use ancient steam boats and train engines, unpick mechanical locks and use various mechanical devices in the world.

Social Endeavours

Examples of these are a merchant who doesn't give access to her wares unless a group convinces her to, or a scholar who can give lectures to larger parties earning them valuable skills and knowledge in the process. Social endeavours are about interacting with folk in the world and affecting their response to you depending on your numbers.

Current status - your input!

We’re currently developing these systems and plan to try some out in the upcoming beta. We truly hope that you like the idea of Endeavours, and we’d love to hear your thoughts regarding them in the comments right here. If you have ideas for other types of Endeavours we can add, please comment below and we might implement them! (And credit you for it in the final game of course!)

Thank you for your time!
Jakob and the team

PS Very soon we'll be sending another update with the first of our Ask the Devs videos. We have lots to share at the moment but we're also trying to work out how to keep everyone happy over three platforms (Mailing list, Steam and right here) so we decided to risk double postings rather than risk your missing out. Thank you for your patience!

Hello 2020! + Sharing our pathway to release.
about 6 years ago – Sun, Feb 02, 2020 at 12:12:52 AM

Dear Backer,

Now that we're almost a whole month into 2020 the team have had a chance to gather together and finalise all plans dev and comms for Book of Travels. We are excited to be writing to you today to let you know what they are! But not before expressing how grateful we are to have your support and attention in this, the last leg of this huge project. Not to mention another big thank you for your backing, your sharing, and anything else you did for us in 2019 that made for this wonderful start to 2020.

Oh yes, it's going to be sublime! Today we share dev news and play dates from the production schedule, so read on!  

The year ahead 

It’s hard to believe that we're actually only nine months away from Early Access! Next month we'll be deciding what to include in the beta – and it's a pretty exciting task, because right now we're seeing some key levels really come to life. We're also working on our UI and we know a fair few of you are keen to see some screenshots, so we're looking forward to including some in our next newsletter. And now we can finally share our two key play dates: in May and June we'll be beta testing and October brings us to early access. (Are you a beta tester? More info is coming soon!)

Discord, late pledges + island winner announcement soon

We appreciate that Discord communities are traditionally liveliest when games are live and playable, so it's really great to see that the Might and Delight (previously Book of Travels) server is still lively. If you're still looking for an up-to-date link to join us, this is it. You can now use the server to chat about anything Might and Delight (and much more besides) so if your pledge bundle includes other games you can now share your play adventures on the relevant channel. And if you want to add to your pledge rewards there's still time to check out our pledge manager for add-ons or to change your existing bundle.

As for our island winner, we will be revealing who that is in our February mail out! 

Get social on Steam

Finally, we'd like to invite you to go to our Might & Delight community Steam page and hit the follow button - this is where you’ll soon be able to view more news and images from the game and better still, where you can leave comments too. 

New Shelter Bundle from Might and Delight!

Oh, one more thing: We just released a limited offer bundle at a super cool 90% discount. You'll get all Shelter games, DLCs, soundtracks and bonus episodes + an art book and comics – all for under 10 dollars! Survive the wild as a Lynx mother protecting her cubs, or play Meadow online and communicate with other players using the unique language of symbols that's the precursor to the one in Book of Travels. (And if you're a backer who got Meadow as part of your pledge, that cost will also be subtracted from the bundle.)   

Today we’ve doubled up so this Kickstarter update will also come to you as a newsletter, but from here onward all updates will act as alerts to the Book of Travels newsletter as per your reward bundle – so no more doubles!

That's all for now, we look forward to reconnecting for 2020 and reading your comments on Steam.

Best Wishes,

Helen and the team at Might & Delight

**TODAY** Play Meadow with the Devs! Codes and Steam keys delivered
over 6 years ago – Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 09:28:22 PM

Hello!

Thank so much for your patience in waiting for your Discord roles and Steam keys. You should by now have found them in your inbox (if not keep reading) and below you will find more detail on how to set them up. We had hoped to get them to you sooner, but in the long run it worked out easier to set up a pledge manager. The good news is that now you can adjust or add to your pledge, so those of you who wanted to get games for partners, family and friends can now do so, and you can also order other extras and add-ons from the campaign. (NB: if you want to upgrade your pledge you need to find a little, hard-to-notice button below the large one that says 'get started'.)

Play with the Devs in Meadow this afternoon!

Now that you have a key for Meadow, we can't wait to see you at Centre Tree! Look out for Might and Delight devs who will be playing as star-spotted rabbits, like this one...

How to get your Discord role

You should have an invitation to join Discord in the email we sent to you yesterday, or perhaps you are already on the server (now renamed Might and Delight). Either way, to redeem your Discord role codes, follow these steps:

1. Go to the Might and Delight Discord server
2. Find "EagleBot" in the members list to the right, above the Travellers
3. Click on EagleBot's name and send a message with your code
4. You should now have been roled but if not, contact MaD_Arvid or any of the moderators for help

How to get Meadow

If you haven't got a Steam account you'll need to create one, after that simply use the code found in your email to redeem your game. Here's a really great guide on how to redeem Steam keys.

Can't find your email?

For anyone unable to find the email we sent yesterday, you can log in here and ask for a resend. We're a small team with no dedicated customer service staff, so we're crossing fingers that all will go according to plan! You can find answers to questions here or send a query through the pledge manager.

We hope you enjoy your games and roles! 

Best Wishes,

Helen and the team at Might & Delight

After the Party is Over... Your rewards and other news
over 6 years ago – Tue, Dec 03, 2019 at 11:45:18 PM

Dear Backers,

We hope you are well. At Might & Delight HQ we've been snoozing, clearing up a little, making some plans for the time ahead. And that includes getting roles to you on Discord and game keys for Tiny Echo and Meadow to Travellers and beyond. 

Roles and games

We'll be sending these via Mailchimp, which means that your address will be moved from Kickstarter onto our mailing list - of course we'd love to keep it that way, so that you can receive our occasional and lovingly-crafted mails, but please unsubscribe if you want to. 

Meet in the Meadow!

Once you have Meadow ready to go, you'll be able to join us in the Meadow on Thursday 12th December... Meadow already has a small and loyal fan base and we're super excited about the chance for new and seasoned players to get together with devs and unlock some obelisks together!

Pledge manager

In the next few weeks we'll be setting up a pledge manager. This means that you can add rewards or additional games to your pledge. We hope that this will be something of a solution to some of the problems some of you had with pledges, as it will allow you to purchase additional items. This is a way to get things you missed out on, including extra copies of the game. 

We'll let you know as soon as we have more info on the pledge manager in the next couple of weeks. In the meantime, go to Steam or Discord if you'd like to talk to one another or post ideas for the game. Hope to see you there or in Meadow soon!

Best Wishes, 

Helen and the team at Might & Delight